Posted on 02/19/2005 11:03:06 AM PST by neverdem
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:01 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday a string of attacks killing more than 50 Iraqis in two days were failed attempts to sow sectarian strife and destabilize the country.
Clinton, a New York Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., were part of a five-member congressional delegation that met with U.S. officials and members of Iraq's interim government.
Both Clinton and McCain have been strident critics of the Pentagon's planning and management of the war in Iraq. But Clinton said Saturday that Sunni Muslim insurgents were failing in their efforts to destabilize Iraq through sectarian violence.
Her comments came as numerous suicide bombings and other insurgent attacks across Iraq killed dozens of people, Iraqi officials said, as Shiite Muslim worshippers celebrated their holiest day of the year. A U.S. soldier was among those killed in the attacks, the military said.
On Friday, insurgents staged five attacks killing at least 36 people and Shiites blamed radical Sunni Muslim insurgents for attacking them in a string of bombings, shootings and kidnappings.
Authorities had hoped to prevent a repeat of last year's attacks during the Ashoura festival when insurgent blasts killed at least 181 people in Karbala and Baghdad.
Clinton said insurgents had also failed to disrupt Iraq's landmark Jan. 30 elections, won by the Shiite clergy-backed ticket. The United Iraqi Alliance won 140 seats in the 275-seat National Assembly.
``Not one polling place was shut down or overrun and the fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure,'' she said.
``The results of the election are a strong rebuke to those who did not believe that the Iraqi people would take this opportunity to demonstrate their own commitment to their own future.''
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said he did not believe the U.S. military would leave Iraq anytime soon.
``How long I don't know, but to leave too soon would be devastating to stay too long is unnecessary,'' Graham said. ``I ask the American people to be patient, because what happens here will affect our security back home.''
McCain said the U.S. military presence was tied to the numbers of casualties taken by American forces, but he was heartened by the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.
``We have a long hard difficult struggle ahead of us and I'm far more optimistic now,'' McCain said.
In December, McCain said he had ``no confidence'' in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, but he added that keeping Rumsfeld in the position was President Bush's choice, not his.
The delegation also was briefed by U.S. Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who is leading the effort to create an independent Iraqi security force, McCain said.
The group had not left the Green Zone, home to Iraqi government institutions and the American and British embassies, because of the security situation, McCain said. They were expected to meet with U.S. troops stationed elsewhere in Iraq on Sunday.
At least 1,476 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The five senators that flew into Iraq included Clinton, McCain, Graham, Maine Republican Susan Collins and Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold.
Sounds quite familiar, but 'fraid I dunno.
However, if I were near Hillary Rodham, and she said "I'm sick and tired..." I might be wary for an airborne lamp launched along my azimuth.
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We still have troops in Japan, Germany, and South Korea. Lessee now, how many years since WW II and Korea?
It is when you're a NY Democratic pol.
"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic," a shrill-sounding Clinton shouted during her address to Connecticut's Jefferson Jackson Bailey dinner.
"We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration," she shrieked.
Yeah, go for it, Hill!
See post no. 206, this thread.
I think that she wants to preside over an American make-over in which we become a Utopian collective. She has already shown that she wants to separate us from our choice family doctors, and that she hates the military (and they know it, BTW).
I believe that Hillary indeed has a hidden core (albeit a far left one) and that she likely has carefully prepared plans. I'd love to know the contents of her Wellesley thesis, for her true convictions just might be outlined right there.
I was thinking about this in the bath-tub this morning. (Don't laugh!)
I have to argue that Hillary does not have true convictions. It is her ambition to realize a socialist America and to see "President" in front of her name.
People who have convictions are proud of them and would not speak the opposite in public.
Hillary, with socialized medicine and child care, military cutbacks, etc., would take away freedom and liberty from the people. The leader, as in Cuba, would become a dictator which would give her more power than a President normally has. So, ultimately, it is more power for Hillary via the ideology. Any ideology, such as Marxism, that states "The end justifies the means" is lacking in conviction. It is an ambition. That is her core.
Thanks for the Ping.
I read the transcript since I didn't see the press conference.
Sometimes I wonder if some of our senators and reps are being manipulative or just REALLY stupid.
McCain sometimes says things where I just shake my head and wonder if he thought about what he said before he said or if he just doesn't care. This is one of those times.
Was there a synapse malfunction in his brain or is he just a jerk?
I follow your line of thinking, however...
Consider Hillary's mentor, Saul Alinsky, the practical revolutionary.
Alinsky said many creepy, scary things, I'll paraphrase a couple.
First - pretending to moral (in this case being supportive of our Military and our Country) is a 'passport' to desired objectives.
Second, Alinsky also said something to the effect that treason isn't treason to a revolutionary. (I don't know if Hillary takes it this far, let's hope not.)
Thus, a true revolutionary would have no compunction about donning a patriotic cloak while scheming less-than-patriotic schemes.
If convictions are beliefs that one holds with moral certainty, then one could believe that masking values and intent are one's convictions.
Sorry to be tedious on the point. Glad you are pursuing the issue.
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